


Common dust

by zinjadu



Series: Wed to Blight [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 01:17:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14759828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: When Caitwyn Tabris lost her mother, the world changed.





	Common dust

Caitwyn shivered in the chill night air.  The wind off the ocean cut through her up this high, the crumbling walls of the old abandoned guard tower overlooking the docks offering little protection.  From below, she could hear the cries of the dock workers, sailors, and hawkers, but her eyes stared into the distance, seeing past the ships in the harbor.  Another vision filled her mind—

_Her neck twisted at a sickening angle, arms splayed, fingernails torn, cuts on her arms, her chest, her face.  The clothes she wore, dark and trim for a night of second story work, work she had done by herself, no back up, no lookout._

She closed her eyes tight, trying to shut it out.  Teeth clenched, she swallowed the bile in her throat.

Her fingers dug into her arms, and she shook as her mind spiraled away from her.

_“No Cait!  Don’t!”  Soris holding her back, she twisted her body and slipped out of his grip, through the press of bodies.  She can hear the whispers: a woman like that, only could end like this, feel sorry for the daughter, would he remarry, you think?_

 

Her hands clamped over her ears, as if she could shut out what she had already heard.  They were supposed to be family, supposed to look after one another, care about one another, but being different was dangerous.  Danger that could come down on all of them.  Instead, that danger had only come down on one woman.

 

_He held her body, face stricken with anguish, but she could only stare.  “No, no, no, no, no,” he said, but no words came to her.  A low buzzing filled her head, like hornets, stinging, cruel.  He caught sight of her, his daughter, a girl with her mother’s shape but his eyes.  His heart broke anew to see her.  “Oh firebug…”  He reached for her._

_She ran._

Curled into a tight ball, Caitwyn rocked forward, her head hitting the cool, salt-crusted stone.  She pitched over onto her side, fighting down every wrenching cry, every bitter tear, every black, slick, shivery fear.  Fear.  Once she had been unafraid, but she’d learned fear two years ago in an alley, and it hadn’t left her since.

 

She would have to face them soon.  Face her family, what was left of it, and she had to be strong now.  She wanted to stay here, to hide away, but the creeping realization that she had to leave stole over her.    

 

There could be no room for weakness.

 

* * *

 

Caitwyn slunk back into the Alienage in the dead of night, the tall, clapboard buildings swaying ever so slightly in the summer breeze.  When she had been in the tower up high, the wind had smelled salty and clean.  Down here, in the muck, the breeze came right off the docks, and brought with it a stench of rotten food and effluence.  For a long moment, she stood in front of the door to her house, one of the few free-standing homes in the Alienage.  Mama and Papa had worked hard to have this home.

 

But Mama’s work had gotten her killed. 

 

Screwing up her courage, Caitwyn opened the door and slipped inside, hoping that everyone was asleep.  She could face them in the morning, it would be better in the morning.

 

“Cait, oh Cait, where were you?” Papa asked, standing up from his chair.  The door, he must have heard it.  Caitwyn cringed like a beaten dog, her eyes glancing to the door to the room she shared with Shianni.  Shianni had lost a mother, too, Caitwyn realized then.  The only mother Shianni could remember would be Adaia Tabris, and Caitwyn had run away.

 

“Sorry Papa,” she said, hanging her head, not wanting to look at him.  Not wanting to see the stark grief there.

 

“I was so worried, Firebug.”  His voice was soft, and he held her shoulder gently.  Caitwyn wanted to break away, to go back to her hiding place, but she had to be strong.  She had to be.

 

“I had to get away, Papa.  I won’t do it again,” she promised.  Glancing up, she caught sight of Papa’s worried frown, and felt compelled to explain.  “I won’t do _any_ of it again.  None of the work Mama taught me.  I’ll come work with you at the bann’s estate, I’ll—”

 

“Firebug, Cait, oh, no,” he breathed and enfolded her in a hug.  Caitwyn buried her face against her father’s chest and clung to his arms.  “Don’t think about that right now.  We’ll figure something out.”

 

“But we need the money,” she protested.  Part of her wanted to pull away, to be the grown up she had to be now, but she didn’t.

 

“That’s _mine_ to worry about, not yours,” he told her.  He held her head in one hand and dropped a kiss into her hair.  Tears welled in her eyes, and she shook.

 

“I’m sorry Papa, I’m sorry,” she sobbed, her fists curling into the fabric of his shirt.  Then she heard him suck in a hard breath, and a sob broke from her father. 

 

“You have nothing to be sorry about, Cait.  _Nothing_ ,” he insisted, tilting her face up to look into his eyes.  They had the same eyes.  Mama had always liked that.  Tears ran down Papa’s face, and Caitwyn stopped trying to keep everything locked in a little box.

 

Together, father and daughter wept.  Her mother was gone, and with her all the courage and will to thrive Caitwyn had ever known.  Now she was just like anyone else in the Alienage.  Small, weak, but she would survive.  Surviving was all they could do.


End file.
